


version 222

by ancientglowstick



Series: 800 versions of ourselves (the good place) [2]
Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: For all we know this is literally canon, Gen, The Good Place (TV) Spoilers, as long as you've started season 2 you're good, just like in the show, lots of cursing but funny censorship versions of the words, mentions of my boy chili, no deaths cuz they're all dead already, purposefully misspelled words, to keep the vibes right, yeah I said vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-20 09:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22181593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientglowstick/pseuds/ancientglowstick
Summary: After Eleanor finds out what Michael's been doing, he tries again. And again. And again. Before long, there are 800 different versions of The Good Place that the four humans have lived through. This is Version 222.
Relationships: Janet (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop, Janet (The Good Place) & Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza, Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza & Eleanor Shellstrop, Michael (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop
Series: 800 versions of ourselves (the good place) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576363
Kudos: 17





	version 222

“Welcome to The Good Place.” The Good Place can soak my deck.

My house is a clown shack. I can’t even forking curse. I guess it’s paradise for all the other numbnuts tater tots here.

It’s been two weeks since I set up a meeting with the Neighborhood Board, which is basically like a weirdash Homeowners’ Association, and asked them to amend the whole ‘not cursing’ thing. I suggested they just change the settings so curse words are censored only for the people who don’t want to hear them. So when I curse, they’ll hear whatever substitutes they came up with. But I’ll hear every single fork, shirt, and buster.

To pass the time until their decision, I’ve been redecorating. The last thing to go are the clown paintings, and it’s only because I can’t decide how much they should suffer before I set them on fire.

“Janet?”

With a soft  _ bing! _ Janet appears over my shoulder.

“Forking hail! I’ll never get used to that.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Do you want me to move away?” She takes a small step backward.

“Nah, that’s okay. I see you’re still wearing the pink combo. It’s cute, but girl? Don’t you want a change of clothes?”

“Not a girl. And no, I do not. I do change clothes when I’m rebooted, but for the most part, they’re simply a formality.”

“Alright, alright. Respect. But you’re definitely hot enough to get away with dropping the formalities, if you know what I mean. If you ever wanna hang loose, I’m your girl. Head over here and-”

“Actually, I can’t take off my clothes, Eleanor. Even when I’m all alone in my boundless void. It just doesn’t work like that.”

“Well that sucks royal ash.” I walk over to the horrifying clown paintings and start pulling them off the wall. “Wait, does that mean you’ve never gone streaking?”

“No.”

“Not even when your friend who wasn't _really_ your friend but more like a mean girl who wanted to embarrass you said she’d give you 20 bucks after the junior homecoming game if you took the big ‘S’ flag off its pole and wrapped it around you like a cape and ran across the field wearing nothing else?”

Janet’s permanent smile falters. “No.”

“Your loss.” I pick up a clown and take it to the kitchen. Janet follows, hands folded behind her back like a flight attendant before they ask you to please exit the aircraft, ma’am. “Hold on, I called you here for a reason.”

“You wanted me to update you on the proceedings of the Neighborhood Board.”

“Oh yeah, thanks.” I open a drawer and start hacking at the canvas with a steak knife. “Go ahead.”

“The Board has yet to reach a decision.”

“Still? I’m getting forking fed up. What else could they possibly be busy with? Chili says one else is complaining about anything, but he’s definitely wrong. ‘Oh Eleanor, you’re the only one who thinks communal bathhouses are a good idea.’ Whatever, yoink-job. The Egyptians thought they were the shirt.”

“Ancient Romans.”

“Same difference.”

“The Board is actually occupied with raising butterflies for the garden project right now,” Janet explains.

That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. “Raising butterflies?”

“Yep.” 

“Butterflies don’t need to be raised!” I put the chopped up clown painting remains in the sink. “They’re not cows! They’re like squirrels or kids, you can just pop ‘em out and let them do what they want.” With a flick, the garbage disposal tears the buster to shreds.

Jason busts through the door, wearing his usual tracksuit and snapback. There’s Dorito dust on his pants.

“I heard a garbage disposal and came over as fast as I could. If we’re destroying stuff, I’m in. If you got your hair stuck in it, I can help. My bro Denise got her hair stuck in a garbage disposal once, and we just used orange juice to get her out.”

I flip off the disposal. “What did the orange juice do?”

“No, we called a plumber. He made us pay him in orange juice. Then he just cut off all her hair, which we could’ve done without needing two gallons of OJ.” He pauses. “I dunno why he didn’t just buy some. There’s a whole wall of orange juice in every Florida grocery store.”

“Actually, we’re going with option 1.” He’s confused, so I clarify. “Destroying something.” Janet winks at him.

“Oh, dope! Can I help?”

“Sure, dude. Grab a knife.”

“Does a Swiss Army knife work? I always have one on me. You never know when you’ll need to carve a breathing hole.”

“Hail yeah it does.”

Putting my own knife between my teeth, I motion Jason over to the paintings piled in the corner. We each take a new one, bring them to the kitchen, and start ripping them up.

“This is kinda fun,” I say. “We’re like the creepy puppet doll from  _ Saw _ .”

“The doll’s name is Billy,” offers Janet. “Used by the killer to speak with his victims.”

“Really? I thought the doll was the killer. But I also never got all the way through the movie. I kept yelling ‘This is boring, kill em faster!’ and throwing popcorn at the screen in the theatre, so they kicked me out. I may have been banned for life. It was never made clear.”

“You got four emails, seventeen paper letters, and one voicemail from a judge.”

“Who never got back to me when I asked about getting my exclusive membership popcorn bucket back! Ryan Reynolds was on it.” Jason nods and pats my shoulder.

“Speaking of not getting responses from people in power: Eleanor, the Neighborhood Board has updated your case.”

Jason bounces up and down. “What about mine? Did they update mine too?”

“I didn’t know you filed a case.”

“I asked them to see if they could get Ariana Grande to give a concert here. She’s so sexy. I miss her.”

I touch his arm. “We know you do, buddy.”

“Fortunately, they seem to have reached a consensus about both proposals.”

Jason and I look at each other. He crosses his fingers and squeezes his eyes shut. “Janet, give it to us straight. I don’t wanna be caught off cart.”

I sigh. He’s so pretty. “Janet, what’s the verdict?”

“The Board has rejected both of your propositions.”

Forking forkfaces. Deckheads.

“What the fork, man? Why would they reject Ariana Grande?”

“They said she was, quote, ‘Too provocative, too controversial, and still alive.’”

I run the disposal again, stuffing the two new casualties into the sink. “Why are they so stuffy? They keep adversizing themselves as a way to improve the neighborhood, but nothing has changed! Eight months and everything is exactly the same. I’ve submitted nineteen ideas on my own. Granted, the annual chicken tournament was never going to go over well, but the other eighteen were great!”

“And they won’t give me any spray paint. It washes off, dudes!”

“It’s like their only real goal is to make us frustrated with how little they listen to us!”

For a second, only the grinding sound of the garbage disposal killing clowns keeps our angry energy alive. The gears in my brain start to spin, so I turn off the sink to think clearly.

“Janet?”

“Yes?”

“Get Michael.”

“Of course.” She disappears with another soft  _ bing! _ only to reappear moments later, following Michael through the open door.

“Janet told me you wanted to see me?”

“I have a question for you.”

“Ask away.”

“How many ideas has the Neighborhood Board heard?” Behind him, Janet opens her mouth, but I shake my head. She takes the hint.

“About 341. But Janet can tell you that, can’t you Janet?”

“And how many have they approved?”

“Well… none. But many of the residents have voiced no complaints at all.”

I can see Chili’s reprimanding face in my head.

“Remember, the Board makes decisions based on collective good. What’s best for the whole neighborhood.”

“Yeah, Chili’s been telling me about Rousseau. Personally, Rousseau’s a poor excuse for a rat’s ash. But wouldn’t the collective good be cancelled out when 341 ideas are shot down? That’s a lot of unhappy people, isn’t it, Michael?”

“There are only 100 residents in the neighborhood. Most of the ideas have come from a small handful of residents, so-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But such an imbalance surely doesn’t represent the collective good anymore. Even if just a few people are miserable.

“Like I said, it’s just a small proportion that are unhappy-”

“So you admit it!” I exclaim. “There  _ are _ unhappy people here! Because this is The Bad Place.”


End file.
